Signed-off-by: Nicolas George <geo...@nsup.org> --- doc/faq.texi | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+)
diff --git a/doc/faq.texi b/doc/faq.texi index 494da86..68e8a17 100644 --- a/doc/faq.texi +++ b/doc/faq.texi @@ -467,6 +467,29 @@ point acceptable for your tastes. The most common options to do that are @option{-qscale} and @option{-qmax}, but you should peruse the documentation of the encoder you chose. +@section I have a stretched video, why does scaling does not fix it? + +A lot of video codecs and formats can store the @emph{aspect ratio} of the +video: this is the ratio between the width and the height of either the full +image (DAR, display aspect ratio) or individual pixels (SAR, sample aspect +ratio). For example, CGA screens at resolution 640×350 had 4:3 DAR and 35:48 +SAR. + +Most still image processing work with square pixels, i.e. 1:1 SAR, but a lot +of video standards, especially from the analogic-numeric transition era, use +non-square pixels. + +Most processing filters in FFmpeg handle the aspect ratio to avoid +stretching the image: cropping adjusts the DAR to keep the SAR constant, +scaling adjusts the SAR to keep the DAR constant. + +If you want to stretch, or “unstretch”, the image, you need to override the +information with the +@url{http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#setdar_002c-setsar, @code{setdar or setsar filters}}. + +Do not forget to examine carefully the original video to check whether the +stretching comes from the image or from the aspect ratio information. + @chapter Development @section Are there examples illustrating how to use the FFmpeg libraries, particularly libavcodec and libavformat? -- 2.1.4 _______________________________________________ ffmpeg-devel mailing list ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org http://ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-devel